Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation
Paul's Jewish identity and Ephesians

Study of Ephesians 2 that reassesses first-century Christian and Jewish relations.

Tet-Lim N. Yee (Author)

9780521838313, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 March 2005

326 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.2 cm, 0.573 kg

Review of the hardback: '… a detailed study of Eph. 2. … well written, well argued and thoroughly researched.' Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Much scholarship has focused on Paul's insistence on Gentile membership of the people of God equally with Jews. Dr Yee's study of Ephesians 2 reveals how the distinctively Jewish world view of the author of Ephesians underlies this key text. He explores how the Ephesians' author provides a resolution to one of the thorniest issues regarding two ethnic groups in the earliest period of Christianity: can Jew and Gentile, the two estranged human groups, be one (people of God) and if so, how? Setting Ephesians 2 as fully as possible into its historical context, he describes some of the relevant Jewish features and demonstrates them, revealing many explosive but hidden issues. This book provides an important contribution to the continuing reassessment of Christian and Jewish self-understanding in regard to each other during the critical period of the latter decades of the first century CE.

Foreword J. D. G. Dunn
1. Introduction
2. Continuity or discontinuity? The new perspective on Ephesians, with reference to Ephesians 2:1–10
3. 'You who were called the uncircumcision by the circumcision': Jews, gentiles and covenantal ethnocentrism (Ephesians 2:11–13)
4. 'He is our peace': Christ and ethnic reconciliation (Ephesians 2:14–18)
5. Israel and the new temple (Ephesians 2:19–22)
6. Summary and conclusions.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], The Early Church [HRCC1], Interfaith relations [HRAF]